March 2011 Grocery Challenge

Living_proof

I would like to join for April please.

I have come to the recent conclusion that, frugal though I am on the whole, I consistently buy far too much and need to cut right back. Half of me still shops for the family, whereas now it is just me and my partner, and he buys his share of the food anyway.

I have just defrosted and sorted out my freezer and (amongst what I can actually identify), combined with store cupboard items, I think I could survive April on £50 and that would be for fruit, veg. and milk. I make my own breadmaker bread and have had a fairly recent delivery from Wrights, so enough mixes for the next two months anyway.

I work from home and therefore soup and a sandwich is an easy lunch, and heaven knows I have enough soup in the freezer! It is ironic that during the really cold spell we had at the turn of the year, we couldn't dig ourselves in to the garage to get freezer food out so all the preparation was for nothing.

I have a good stock of household cleaners, toiletries, etc. and I already have a turkey breast joint in the freezer for Easter.

Can I ask does anyone actually run their freezer down to nothing and then start again? The thought is very tempting!

blue_cat_4

Hi, I've kinda lost my way last month but am going to try to keep on track this month. Could you put me down for £300 for April.
That's for 2 adults, 2 children ( one very hungry teenager) 2 dogs, 1 cat, 3 chickens
Thanks

TheThriftyScrumpers

Evening all!

Busy shopping weekend. Farmers
Market, mr t's, s#vers (going to get all cleaning stuff here to see if cheaper) and iceburgs.

I set myself a £50 limit at mr t's so I add up on my shopping list as stuff is added to the trolley. The GC is doing wonders for my mental arithmetic capabilities

Bought 36 individual rice puddings (buy 1 pack of 12 get 2 free) as a treat, only to be told by OH & DD they aren't keen. Should have seen the look on my face :eek: looks like me and DS will be eating a lot of rice pudding.

Night night x

Billie-jo

ieimimiai wrote: »

woohoo!! really pleased, first month of doing the challenge and i've managed to come in quite under my budget, total spend is £138.52/£200 Will aim for £130 in april i think. Thanks for the thread, its really helped me focus on the spending. :T

Well done a great result for your first month. :T
Spent £12.32 between the butchers and green grocers on Saturday and today has been a NSD should be another one tomorrow as well.

helen_jelly

Hello Living Proof and welcome

Freezer - I wouldn't dare run down my freezer to nowt. DH would have a heart attack if he had no meat or fish stored in there!!

Helen x

Gigglepig

Hi, I have been away quite a bit in March so I lost track of the grocery challenge, but I am looking forward to try again in April. Can you put me down for £250 please? :-)

Overnight trips can be really difficult, since there is limited time and choice of food at services, airports, train stations, particularly for special dietary requirements.

I still have quite a big stash in cupboards so when I have a bit of time I'm going to go through them and plan meals using the food I already have in the house.

scotsaver

Living_proof wrote: »

I would like to join for April please.

I have come to the recent conclusion that, frugal though I am on the whole, I consistently buy far too much and need to cut right back. Half of me still shops for the family, whereas now it is just me and my partner, and he buys his share of the food anyway.

I have just defrosted and sorted out my freezer and (amongst what I can actually identify), combined with store cupboard items, I think I could survive April on £50 and that would be for fruit, veg. and milk. I make my own breadmaker bread and have had a fairly recent delivery from Wrights, so enough mixes for the next two months anyway.

I work from home and therefore soup and a sandwich is an easy lunch, and heaven knows I have enough soup in the freezer! It is ironic that during the really cold spell we had at the turn of the year, we couldn't dig ourselves in to the garage to get freezer food out so all the preparation was for nothing.

I have a good stock of household cleaners, toiletries, etc. and I already have a turkey breast joint in the freezer for Easter.

Can I ask does anyone actually run their freezer down to nothing and then start again? The thought is very tempting!

Welcome on board Living proof - I've never completely run down the Freezers but last month I had to make way for a delivery so I used up as much as I could from the Chest Freezer and I still had the Freezer drawers in the Fridge/Freezer to fall back on. Emptying the chest freezer was interesting as you forget what you have in there and there were a few things in there where the labels had come off - defrosted some "pork" for a Sweet & sour pork and it turned out to be sliced Gammon from Xmas.:o

Dinner tonight is a Chicken pie using leftovers from Roast last night.

Need to go shopping today as we have almost run out of flour, fruit, veg, spuds, marg etc etc but my April GC starts today so got it all covered.;)

Have a good day everyone and I'll see you on the April GC.:D

JayJay14

Not been arround much to post though I have tried to keep up with reading,

Mrs M please could you put me down for £200 again for April.

Many thanks to you , pink and rosieben for all your hard work.

Candy_Belle

Welcome to the thread all newbies!

2 NSDS to report for the weekend! Unheard of here!!! x

Mothership

scotsaver wrote: »

Mothership - how weird is that, I also cooked our Beef Rib trim yesterday in the Slow Cooker, only got my first delivery last month and had never cooked this before, you may remember me asking you for advice on what to do with it, anyway, I defrosted 2 packs and it was delicious but as you say a lot of fat - left the remainder to cool and this morning removed the fat and I have frozen to use at a later date - the gravy was delicious, really steaky flavour.

Got my next delivery coming this week, can't wait but still got loads in the Freezer from last delivery.;)

OMG! The steak pie with the beef rib trim was delicious, OH was licking his lips and smacking his chops, will DEFINITELY be getting that again. There was a lot of fat, but easily removed if left to cool. I've got quite a big order coming at the end of April, and we will need to eat as much as we can from the freezers to make room for it, we have eaten from the freezer most of the month and hardly made a dent in it.

I'm really getting into the grocery challenge, I've managed to reduce my spending dramatically since I joined, I'm down to 1/5th of what I spent same time last year. I am particularly pleased at the 2nd & 3rd purse paying for my DR purchases, I've got orders coming right up till July. A few roasts and top ups for the freezer. Doing this stopped me from buying SM meat I didn't need. The freezer stock is now almost all prime meat. So not only is my spending down we are eating top quality food. I don't even look at the meat in the SM now.

I've reduced my budget again for April, the 2nd and 3rd purse are now taking the pressure off my monthly HK budget. The 3rd purse is usually used to pay for luxuries, using it to fill the freezers with top quality meat I guess could be classed as that.

Thank you everyone for your support, and the board organisers for all their hard work, it is greatly appreciated.

Sweet and Sour Chicken for dinner tonight. Butternut Squash soup for lunch.:)